Faith Never Stands Alone: How to Develop a Full Faith as a Bedrock for Life

By Ronald Higdon

The relationship between faith and action has troubled Christians since there have been any Christians to be troubled! Is there such a thing as faith without works? Can faith be grown, and if so, how?

Ron Higdon, drawing on a lifetime of ministry, experience, and study, sets out to help with these questions. He teaches that faith is a risky business, it is always connected to action, it doesn't protect us from life's difficulties and tragedies. In fact, it appears, faith can be hard work!

Each chapter includes introductory ideas with biblical sources, followed by reflection, a section of quotations to drive your thinking, a few conclusions and then thought questions.

This is a practical book designed and intended to help you live out your life as a Christian. It is suitable for individual reading and study, but also well laid-out for small group or Sunday School usage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781631998447

Ronald Higdon

Ronald Higdon, with over sixty years of pastoral experience, including ten years of intentional interim ministry and ten years as an adjunct seminary professor, has served churches in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia. He is an intentional interim specialist and a certified church consultant and facilitator. He personally leads study groups on various books (see below). He and his wife, Pat, live in Kentucky and have a grown son.

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FAITH NEVER STANDS ALONE

How to Develop a Full Faith as a Bedrock for Life

Ronald W. Higdon

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, FL

2023

Copyright @ 2023, Ronald Higdon

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education & the National Council of the Churches of Christ.

Scripture quotations marked BARCLAY are taken from The New Testament by William Barclay, copyright 1999 by Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville.

Scripture quotations marked BARNSTONE are taken from The New Covenant by Willis Barnstone, copyright 2002 by The Berkley Publishing Group, New York.

Scripture quotations marked HART are taken from The New Testament by David Bentley Hart, copyright 2017 by Yale University Press, New Haven.

Scripture quotations marked HOLMAN are taken from Holman Christian Standard Bible, copyright 2004 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville.

Scripture quotations marked JB are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, copyright 1968 by Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are taken from The New English Bible, copyright 1961 by Oxford University Press, Cambridge.

Scripture quotations marked NEW are taken from A New New Testament edited by Hal Taussig, copyright 2013 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2207, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked PHILLIPS are taken from The New Testament in Modern English by J. B. Phillips, copyright 1968 by The Macmillan Company, New York.

Scripture quotations marked SCHONFIELD are taken from The Original New Testament by Hugh J. Schonfield, copyright 1998 by Element Books, Shaftesbury, Dorset.

Scripture quotations marked TNIV are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version, Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked WUEST are taken from The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest, copyright 1961 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids.

Cover Design: Henry Neufeld

ISBN: 978-1-63199-843-0

eISBN: 978-1-63199-844-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022951966

Energion Publications — P.O. Box 841 — Gonzalez, FL 32560

[phone] — Energion.com — [e-mail]

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife of sixty-plus years, who has not only supported me in my ministry but has also made significant contributions. She read many of my sermons and manuscripts and made helpful and constructive observations about how they would come across to the reader or listener. It is with deep love and gratitude that I dedicate this book to Pat.

Table Of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

1 Faith Is Not An Aladdin’s Lamp 5

2 Cheap Faith Can Be Found On

The Same Counter As Cheap Grace 13

3 Faith Is Always A Relational Matter 21

4 Faith Does Not Continue to Dance On The Foundation 29

5 Faith Is A Kingdom Word 37

6 Faith Is Risky Business 47

7 Faith Always Involves Action 55

8 Faith and Perseverance Move In Lockstep 63

9 Faith and Courage Are Tightly Bound Together 71

10 Faith Does Not Protect Us

from Life’s Difficulties and Tragedies 79

11 Faith Always Comes In A Step Behind Love 87

12 Faith and Doubt Belong Together 95

13 Wrong Turns and Detours Are Part Of A Faith-Journey 105

14 What Kind Of Mountains Are Moved By Faith? 113

15 Faith Understands How to Ask Better Questions 123

16 Faith Has Nothing to Do With Perfection 133

17 Justice and Compassion Are Necessary for Good Faith 141

18 Faith Is A Whatever Stance 151

Conclusion

:

Faith Where I Am and How I Am

Is The Place for Life and Meaning 159

Bibliography Of Quoted Sources 161

Preface

The righteous live by their faith (Habakkuk 2:4).

You Just Need More Faith.

How often have these words been spoken in all sincerity by someone who, intending to encourage us, now adds guilt to the negative emotions we already have? The meaning of the admonition: if you just had more faith everything would be okay. Many things are omitted from this simple instruction: What exactly is this faith you are talking about? Where do I go to get this faith? When will I ever get enough faith? If I have faith in sufficient quantity, will everything I ever need be taken care of? If I get the sufficiency of faith you are talking about will all my troubles be over? Will I be able to ask God for anything I feel I need and be assured of receiving it? Will all things be possible for me? Will faith be the magic key that unlocks all the blessings I am seeking? Will the necessary amount of faith put me more in control of what happens to me and those I love in this uncertain and threatening world?

When Talking About Faith, Keep It Simple Is Not Good Advice

Brevity, simplicity, and sentimentality are not helpful when talking about a subject as complex as faith (clarity is another matter). In too many recommendations and discussions I hear about faith, there is hardly any context and hardly any of the dimension and depth you will find in biblical faith. Cheap faith can be found on the same table as cheap grace. Regardless of the markdown, they are not worth the price. If slogans of a bumper sticker faith are all that is necessary, Jesus would not have spent three years teaching his disciples what the life of faith is all about. He also promised additional lessons and insights that would be given them by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).

Is Faith Equal to Belief?

Far too many associate faith with a set of beliefs. My faith is solid; I know what I believe. Certainly, there is content to our faith, but this definition hardly touches the biblical approach to faith. When Jesus asked the struggling disciples, who feared their boat was about to sink, "Where is your faith?, he was not asking for a recitation of creedal orthodoxy (Mark 4:35-41). Something far bigger was at stake. Even though Luther called James a rather strawy epistle," it remains a part of the biblical canon. The author insists that faith is far more than believing there is a God: You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder (James 2:29). His most shocking statements (the ones that probably gave Luther ulcers) are: faith without works is dead (2:17); Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? (2:20); For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead (2:27).

Faith Is Never Solitary

The case for faith never standing alone, is clearly indicated in II Peter 1:5f:

You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love…Anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.

The KJV of the above text begins with the words: Add to your faith. This list is certainly not meant to be comprehensive; it is only the beginning. I’ve lost my faith, has been voiced by many good and sincere Christians who found that the onslaughts, disappointments, and tragedies of life did not respond to their faithful and on-going prayers. God let them down and they could not find in their own lives the confirmation of all the great promises of Scripture. God simply did not deliver, so what good had their faith done them?

How to Develop A Faith That Will Not Disappoint

What did Jesus teach? He had no system, no summa, no code. God forbid! The only way to grasp his teaching is to read all the Gospels repeatedly, until its essence permeates the mind.¹

I almost chose How To Develop a Faith That Will Not Disappoint as the subtitle for the book. It is my firm conviction that a faith of biblical depth and dimensions will not come up short. Exploring and talking about such a faith is challenging, demanding, and calls for the exploration of many of our favorite cherry-picked passages about the wonderful things faith delivers. What we will attempt to offer in this book is a faith firmly established on a solid rock that, unlike structures built on sand, will withstand the winds, floods, and storms of life that challenge and frustrate any faith that demands all the answers and the clarification of mystery, paradox, and ambiguity (Matthew 7:24-27). If you will stick with me, I believe we can discover together a faith that is amazing and achievable for all us ordinary folks. It promises what it can deliver: After all, this is the victory that conquers (overcomes) the world - our faith (I John 5:4).

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1 Paul Johnson, Jesus: A Biography From a Believer (New York: Viking, 2010), 82.

Introduction

The Dimensions and Depths of Biblical Faith

If you check different translations, you will find some rendering the Greek word ­pisteuo as believe and some as trust. One of the most important of these is found in John 14:1. Traditionally, the text has been read: "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God believe also in me." In the context of this verse, which in John is part of Jesus’ teaching in the Upper Room, the far better translation is: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me" (TNIV). If you read chapters 13 through 17 (remember: there were no chapter or verse divisions in the original writing), trusting in God and trusting in Jesus, is the clear message.

Trust is always a relational word. It, like faith, never stands alone but always refers to trust in something or someone. Belief is certainly part of faith but, like the Pharisees, it is easy to allow what one believes to take priority over a relationship with God that provides the context for all one believes and practices. Jesus’ Upper Room teaching implies from beginning to end that it rests solidly on a trusting relationship with the God who continues to manifest his trustworthiness. Another way of saying this is: we believe in a God who can be trusted.

The Hebrew word which lies at the base of the NT pistis and pisteuein is ‘aman’. Basically, this word means to be firm or solid, and hence to be true…to accept something as…firm, sure or true, trustworthy or dependable. ²

The faith of the Gospels, like the OT faith, is not simply trust and confidence; it is trust and confidence which arise from faith, which in turn is an acceptance of a person and his claims.³

The earliest of the biblical stories raises a question that will continue throughout the pages of Scripture. It is raised by the one who will later be called The Accuser (HART). (David Bentley Hart translates Satan as the Slanderer in John 13:2 and as the Accuser in Luke 13:27). In discussing with Eve the limitations that God has placed on life in the Garden, the crafty question put to her is: "Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden’?" (Genesis 3:1). The response given is that God permits any tree’s fruit to be eaten except for the tree in the middle of the garden, "the Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil."⁴

No Trust: Hiding in Fear

The Accuser’s attack on God can be simply stated: You can’t trust God! He’s holding out on you. The day you eat that forbidden fruit you will be like him. You will know what he knows! Trust me! Just take a bite! The next scene finds God "walking in the garden in the cool of the day and calling out, Where are you?" (3:8). The response God receives is (my paraphrase): We are hiding because we are afraid. Later we will discuss a basic premise: the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Fear is a term of separation in which the relationship of trust has been broken. The remainder of the Bible makes the case for God’s trustworthiness and the futility of living in fear. The accounts of the Incarnation in Matthew and Luke contain a surprising number of fear nots. Surprising until you realize just how much they continue to be needed.

As we move through the following chapters, we will find that even our orthodoxy rests on the foundation of belief as trust in the God who continually reminds us of his love and faithfulness. Along the way, we will continue to encounter in various disguises the voice of the Accuser asking, Are you sure you can really trust God? He may be holding out on you. He may not really want what is best for you after all. Well, let’s just see about that.

The journey we will take through the pages that follow:

Faith is not a talisman.

Cheap faith and cheap grace can be found at the same Bargain Religion stores.

Faith is always a matter of personal pronouns.

The basics of faith are meant to be built on.

The Sermon on the Mount is the description of Kingdom people.

Faith is not for those who want to play it safe.

Faith is a verb.

Faith isn’t a quitter.

Frequently, you can hardly tell the difference between faith and courage.

Faith acknowledges the incomprehensibility of evil.

Without love, there is nothing left.

Faith must always have